Just because itÕs fake doesnÕt mean I donÕt

feel it.

Ð Girls, Season 3, Episode 3

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Fredric Jameson once noted that superficiality
was the Òsupreme formal featureÓ of late
twentieth century culture.1 Whether it was in the
philosophy of Foucault or historicist
architecture, in the photography of Warhol or the
nostalgia film, he suggested, an Òexhilaration of
É surfacesÓ had cut short the Òhermeneutic
gesture,Ó the reading of a physical or dramatic
Timotheus Vermeulen expression as a Òclue or a symptom for É reality,Ó
or as the Òoutward manifestation of an inward
The New feeling.Ó2 Indeed, at the time, JamesonÕs
suspicions of this Ònew depthlessness,Ó as he
called the development, were confirmed
ÒDepthinessÓ everywhere: Derrida discussed the withdrawal of
the referent, Baudrillard lamented the waning of
the real, while Deleuze celebrated the
simulacrum. In art, too, superficiality and
evidence of the Ònew depthlessnessÓ abounded.
Indeed, art critic Beral Madra even called this
depthless abundance an ÒobsessionÓ: the
Wachowski brothersÕ The Matrix and WeirÕs The
Truman Show plotted simulations, the photos of
Thomas Demand and Jeff Wall portrayed
hyperreal scenarios where representation and
reality were indistinguishable (that is to say,
where they took place on the same ontological
plane), while novelists Brett Easton Ellis and
e-flux journal #61 Ñ january 2015 Ê Timotheus Vermeulen

Michel Houellebecq described the shallowness

of the human subject.3 Like the Histories of
ideology and the social before it, the History of
depth, of the behind or beyond, too, it seemed,
had come to an end Ð or at least was cut short.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWriting a decade into the twenty-first
century, this History appears to have returned. In
philosophy and art alike, notions of the behind
and the beyond, the beneath and the inside, have
reemerged. The speculative realists, for
The New ÒDepthinessÓ

instance, think beyond the surface of the

epistemological, while artists like Mark Leckey,
Ed Atkins, and Ian Cheng make discoveries
within the simulacral, uncovering unintended
glitches or unexpected traces of other
(hyper)realities: hereditary deficiencies in digital
DNA, intertextual features that come to light
through another focus, immaterial realities as
blueprints for material possibilities. Others, such
as the artists-cum-activists Hans Kalliwoda and
Jonas Staal, or novelists Adam Thirlwell and
Miranda July, study the simulation not as a
model of/for reality but as a diagram of
possibilities, creating self-enclosed scenarios
informed by reality but enacted in isolation from
it, whose conclusions offer radical alternatives.

01.09.15 / 17:58:47 EST

 02/12

Night paddle boarders illuminate the shoreline in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Photo: Julia Cumes.

01.09.15 / 17:58:47 EST

 03/12

Can the snorkeler serve as a metaphor for a modality of new artistic imagination?

01.09.15 / 17:58:47 EST

Importantly, these philosophers, artists, and of a mental concept. Other flattenings pertained
writers, each in their own distinct way, do not to affect, through desubjectivization, and history,
resuscitate depth as much as they resurrect its through pastiche. In other words, when Jameson
spirit. They understand that the depth Jameson spoke about depthlessness, what he was talking
referred to Ð dialectics, psychoanalysis, about was not simply wrapping paper but a
existentialism Ð has been flattened, or hollowed missing present; not a container without

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out. What they create instead are personal, contents but a can of yogurt past its expiration
alternative visions of depth, visions they invite us date: whatever was once inside, it was no longer
to share. Just as the Renaissance painters ingestible.4 The new depthlessness denoted not
developed depth-models that differed from a coincidence but a consequence, the effect of
those structuring twelfth-century painting, years of Ð depending on the discipline Ð
replacing the metaphorical beyond with the obstructing, flattening, cutting off, or hollowing
perspectival behind, many artists today conceive out.
of depth in another sense than their twentieth ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊFor Jameson the history of art was
century predecessors. Many contemporary exemplary of this development. Whereas modern
thinkers and artists leave the dead corpus of art communicated a reality behind it,
depth untouched, whilst trying to reanimate its postmodern art reflected no such externality; or
ghost. if it did reflect anything, it was only the reality in
front of it, the reality of the frame, the white
The New Depthlessness cube, and the spectator. Vincent van GoghÕs A
Over the years, Fredric JamesonÕs notion of the Pair of Boots (1887), Jameson wrote, expressed
new depthlessness has occasionally been both, through its ÒhallucinatoryÓ use of color, the
understood to refer to a focus on, or proliferation artistÕs Òrealm of the sensesÓ and, through its
of, surfaces. As far as I can tell, however, use of Òraw materials,Ó a world Òof agricultural
JamesonÕs depthlessness denoted less a misery, of stark rural poverty, É backbreaking
quantitative development than a qualitative one. peasant toil, a world reduced to its most brutal
His point was not necessarily that there was and menaced, primitive marginalized state.Ó5 The
more interest in surfaces in the 1980s Ð than in, painting, in other words,conveyed individual
say, the 1920s, or the mid-eighteenth century, or ideas, sensibilities, and social realities which
the Renaissance period, though there may well continued beyond its borders. In contrast, Andy
have been. JamesonÕs contribution to the history WarholÕs Diamond Dust Shoes (1980)
of surface attention was rather that by 1991, for communicated neither an authorial voice, nor a
instance, the interest was in the surface itself personal attitude or affect, nor a sense of the
rather than the substance behind or below it Ð world it supposedly represented. The black-and-
e-flux journal #61 Ñ january 2015 Ê Timotheus Vermeulen

fascination and practice hyperfocused on the white photograph, with its shiny, isolated
glass more than the display, the giftwrapping aesthetic, Jameson suggested, could allude to
more than the present. Indeed, what Jameson glamour magazines just as well as to a memory
observed, and what disturbed him, was that the of the artistÕs mother, to shoes left over from
very idea that there was a behind, a present, had Auschwitz or the remains of a dance hall fire. If
seemingly been abandoned. Van GoghÕs painting of peasant shoes pulled the
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of viewer into another world of poverty and misery,
Late Capitalism, he theorized the new WarholÕs photo of pumps pushed the spectator
depthlessness as the repudiation Ð sometimes out back into his own.6 As Warhol himself is
called Òdiscourse,Ó sometimes the Òdeath of the alleged to have said: ÒIf you want to know all
The New ÒDepthinessÓ

author,Ó often Òpoststructuralism,Ó now voiced by about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface: of
Foucault then by Derrida, then Baudrillard Ð of my paintings and films and me, and there I am.
five distinct yet related models of signification: ThereÕs nothing behind it.Ó7
the dialectical model of appearance and ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊJameson, through his discussion of Warhol
essence, in which each material appearance is but also in other case studies concerned with
taken to be the manifestation of a providence, cinema, literature, philosophy, and architecture,
will, or an ideal essence; the existentialist model introduced the notion of a new depthlessness as
of inauthenticity and authenticity, in which an exemplary characteristic of late twentieth
behavior mirrors a self; the hermeneutic model century culture, not as an exhaustive criterion
of outside and inside, in which physical (presumably in line with his understanding of
expressions are perceived as the manifestations postmodernism as a structure of feeling allowing
of inward feelings; the psychoanalytic model of for the coexistence of contradictory registers and
manifest and latent, in which bodily gestures are styles as opposed to a paradigm or regime). He
the symptoms of psychological states; and never suggested that depthlessness was, or
finally the semiotic model of signifier and would be, a feature of all art of the eighties and
signified, in which a sign is read as a signification nineties. It is certainly true, however, that

01.09.15 / 17:58:47 EST

 A deep-sea scuba-diver explores the depths of the ocean at night.

Monika Stricker, Untitled, 2013.

Installation view, ArtistÕs former
studio, WIELS, Brussels.
Courtesy: the artist.

01.09.15 / 17:58:47 EST

depthlessness was the Òsupreme formal
feature,Ó as Jameson put it, in that it was a Unsurprisingly, if the diver is the person who
signifier of a sensibility that was more manifest reads Proust, Baricco writes, the surfer is the
than others. Just think back to the hit music of person browsing the internet.
the time, to the hedonism of the Venga Boys or ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe reason I introduce BariccoÕs metaphors
the desperation of Nirvana; to the bestselling here, kitschy as they are, is twofold.11 The first is

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books, like Brett Easton EllisÕs American Psycho that these metaphors concretize JamesonÕs
(1991), with its simulacral protagonist Patrick abstract notions of depth, especially
Bateman, Òan idea, É some kind of abstraction depthlessness, giving hands and feet to these
but É no real [person],Ó in whose eyes the reader amorphous bodies of thought. To say that
could gaze, whose hands could be shaken, and something is depthless, after all, is not the same
whose flesh could be felt, but who was Òsimply É as suggesting that something is superficial. The
not thereÓ8; or the popularity of artists like the first term acknowledges the possibility of depth
YBAs and Jeff Koons, whose (in)famous Rabbit whilst negating its actuality, whereas the second
from 1986 reflected no reality except the one it disavows it: though the make-up of the word
was in. Recall, also, the ongoing discussions ÒsurfaceÓ suggests layers Ð the Òsur-Ó and the
originating at the time about the End of History, ÒfaceÓ Ð it does not necessarily imply distance.
proclaiming the decline of viable alternatives in By invoking the figure of the surfer, someone
general. Depthlessness may not have been whose concern is not only to stand on the water
everyoneÕs cup of tea, but, sadly, it was definitely but to avoid falling into it, going under, this
the best-selling beverage at Starbucks. duality is made manifest: to speak about
depthlessness is to speak about the extinction of
The New Depthiness depth, not its nonexistence.
In his slim volume of essays The Barbarians, the ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊMore importantly, by introducing the figure
Italian novelist Alessandro Baricco distinguishes of the surfer, Baricco develops JamesonÕs notion
between two experiential registers that in many of depthlessness from an experiential register to
senses mirror, and make manifest, JamesonÕs a modality of engagement. In order to stay above
discussion of depth and depthlessness: diving water, after all, the surfer needs to develop the
and surfing. The diver, Baricco suggests, looks skills that keep him on his board. One of these
for meaning in the depths of the ocean. He skills, one similar to Deleuze and GuattariÕs
delves into the water, sinking deeper and deeper concept of the rhizome, is to perceive the ocean
in search of a particular coral, fish, or sea as a ÒtrajectoryÓ rather than either a territory
monster. This is the person, writes Baricco, who (implying a mapping) or a telos (suggesting
reads, who perseveres reading Proust or Joyce Ð direction). (Indeed, Deleuze himself introduces
e-flux journal #61 Ñ january 2015 Ê Timotheus Vermeulen

that is to say, modernists, to use the vocabulary the figure of the surfer in his ÒPostscript on the
of Jameson. The surfer, Òthe horizontal man,Ó9 on Societies of Control.Ó) Here the surfer stays on
the contrary, looks for meaning on the surface, his board by choosing one wave after the other,
more precisely in the series of waves that form regardless of the corals he scratches with the tip
the surface Ð one after the other after the other, of his board or the direction the waves take him
now left, now right, higher and lower. As Baricco in. He literally lets the waves carry him Ð he
puts it: Òlives in the moment.Ó The second skill is the
ability to constantly keep moving. If the surfer
If you believe that meaning comes in slows down or is momentarily stopped Òby the
sequences and takes the form of a temptation to analyze,Ó as Baricco puts it, he
The New ÒDepthinessÓ

trajectory through a number of different sinks. He must progress, advance, experiencing

points, then what you really care about is each wave not on its own terms but as the
movement: the real possibility to move medium, the catalyst for the next encounter,
from one point to another fast enough to which is to say that each experience is
prevent the overall shape from vanishing. experienced not in and of itself but in
Now what is the source of this movement, anticipation of the next experience, the next
and what keeps it going? Your curiosity, of wave. What Baricco suggests, thus, is that the
course, and your desire for experience. But experiential registers of depth and
these arenÕt enough, believe me. This depthlessness prescribe different modes of
movement is also propelled by the points engagement: in the former you focus on one
through which it passes É [The surfer] has point in particular whilst in the latter you let your
a chance to build real sequences of eyes scan over the surface; in the first you look
experience only if at each stop along his for the special, in the second for the spectacular:
journey he gets another push. Still, theyÕre the next wave, the next thrill. Though BariccoÕs
not really stops, but systems of passage metaphor of the surfer is both limiting and
that generate acceleration.10 reductive and certainly does not define all art

01.09.15 / 17:58:47 EST

 Ane Mette Hol, installation view, Kadel Willborn, DŸsseldorf, Germany, 2013.

Aleksandra Domanović, installation view, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow International, 2014. Photo: Alan McAteer. Courtesy the Artist and
Glasgow International.

01.09.15 / 17:58:47 EST

from the eighties and nineties, it manages to put ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe term ÒdepthinessÓ is a reference to
into words a sentiment often shared between both, as will be clear by now, JamesonÕs notion of
certain artistic traditions and their audiences: depthlessness and Stephen ColbertÕs joke about
the act of looking for a hint, not of what lies Òtruthiness.Ó The comedian invented the term to
beneath, but rather of what lies ahead of us Ð criticize politiciansÕ tendency to bend the facts to
the spectacle, the thrill, the controversy, the next fit their program. As he explained during his

08/12
wave we can ride and then the next, and the controversial speech at the White House
next.To return to JamesonÕs case studies, Van CorrespondentsÕ Dinner in 2006, where he took
GoghÕs A Pair of Boots implies another mode of aim at then president George W. Bush:
engagement than WarholÕs Diamond Dust Shoes:
in the former we are invited to look for traces of Do you know that you have more nerve
an experience; in the latter what we are left to endings in your gut than you have in your
see are points for discussion. head? You can look it up. And now some of
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhile cognizant of the limitations of this you are going to say: I did look it up and
metaphorical vernacular, I would nonetheless thatÕs not true. ThatÕs because you looked it
like to propose that in the past decade, a third up in a book. Next time look it up in your
modality has taken hold of the artistic gut. My gut tells me thatÕs how our nervous
imagination: that of the snorkeler. Bear with me. system works É I give people the truth
Whereas the diver moves towards a shipwreck or unfiltered by rational arguments.14
a coral reef in the depths of the ocean, and the
surfer moves with the flow of the waves, the Colbert defines truthiness as the truth of the gut,
snorkeler swims toward a school of fish whilst unperturbed by empirical research or rational
drifting with the surface currents. Importantly, thought. It is a truth that feels true to me, or to
the snorkeler imagines depth without you, but whose validity is not necessarily
experiencing it. ÒWhere might that fish be confirmed by science.
swimming to?Ó he wonders. Or perhaps he ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe similarity between ColbertÕs concept of
thinks, ÒWhat might be below that rock?Ó He may truthiness and the notion of depthiness
follow the fishÕs direction, left, then right, then proposed here is that both describe a
left again. But he will not, and often cannot, dive contradictio in terminis, or rather, perhaps, a
downwards; or if he does, then it is only for as recontextualization of terms. ÒTruthinessÓ
long as his lungs allow. This is to say: for the expresses the production of a ÒtruthÓ according
snorkeler, depth both exists, positively, in theory, to emotion instead of empiricism; ÒdepthinessÓ
and does not exist, in practice, since he does not, articulates the creation of ÒdepthÓ as a
and cannot, reach it. performative act as opposed to an
e-flux journal #61 Ñ january 2015 Ê Timotheus Vermeulen

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhen I refer to the Ònew depthiness,Ó I am epistemological quality. The difference between
thinking of a snorkeler intuiting depth, imagining the two terms, however, is that whereas the
it Ð perceiving it without encountering it. If former takes the affirmative category of truth as
JamesonÕs term Ònew depthlessnessÓ points to its reference, which suggests that there is a truth
the logical and/or empirical repudiation of even if the suffix ÒÐnessÓ implies that it may not
ideological, historical, hermeneutic, apply to what is denoted; the latter adapts the
existentialist, psychoanalytic, affective, and negative label Òdepthlessness,Ó which by
semiotic depth, then the phrase Ònew contrast suggests that there is no depth, though
depthinessÓ indicates the performative here the suffix intimates that it may be
reappraisal of these depths. I use the term perceived. Indeed, in this sense, it would have
The New ÒDepthinessÓ

ÒperformativeÓ here above all in Judith ButlerÕs been more accurate to contrast truthiness with
sense of the word. Just as Butler writes that the the equivalent of ÒtruthlessinessÓ:
soul is not what produces our behavior but is, on Òdepthlessiness.Ó Truthiness puts the truth into
the contrary, what is produced by our behavior Ð question; depthiness raises doubts about
in other words,not inside the body but on and depthlessness. Truthiness abandons the reality
around it,a surface effect Ð depth is not of truth as a legitimate register of signification;
excavated but applied, not discovered but depthiness restores the possibility of depth as a
delivered.12 Indeed, if the Ògendered body has no viable modality for making meaning.
ontological status apart from the various acts
which constitute its reality,Ó depth, too, exists ÒJust because itÕs fake doesnÕt mean I donÕt
exclusively in its enactment.13 Depth, at least feel itÓ
post-Jameson, will always be a ÒdepthingÓ Ð a The premise of this essay is that over the course
making, actual or virtual, of depth. In this sense, of the past ten years or so, the (sur)face of art
depthiness combines the epistemological reality has changed to resemble not the white caps of
of depthlessness with the performative the surfer but the air pipe, or the bubbles, of the
possibility of depth. snorkeler. In stark contrast with the surface of

01.09.15 / 17:58:47 EST

WarholÕs Diamond Dust Shoes, which articulated
no clues about the affections, localities, or
histories behind it,the surfaces of photographs,
sculptures, and drawings by a younger
generation of artists once again hint at depth. As
I suggested above, this is not the empirical or
09/12
logical depth of the behind, but a performative
depth of what one may call, in the absence of a
more appropriate terminology, the Òwithout.Ó The
without is an approximation of depth which
acknowledges that the surface may well be
depthless,while simultaneously suggesting an
outside of it nonetheless. Van GoghÕs surfaces
were marked with traces of a behind. The surface
of Warhol covered these traces up.
Contemporary surfaces, I would say, havenÕt
uncovered them, exactly, but instead simulate
them.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTo be sure, simulation is by no means a
novel concept. Quite the contrary. If
depthlessness was the Òsupreme formal featureÓ
of late twentieth century art and culture, then it
is safe to say that simulation, the copy without
an original, was its theoretical equivalent.15
Throughout the eighties and nineties especially,
simulation was a recurrent trope in exhibitions,
films, and philosophical seminars alike. One can
think here indeed of the proliferation of Warhol,
Visualizations of data from 3D plotting technology take shape in the music video for RadioheadÕs 2008 ÒHouse of Cards.Ó
01.09.15 / 17:58:47 EST
or of a blockbuster show like Endgame:
Reference and Simulation in Recent Painting and
Sculpture at the ICA in Boston in 1986, but also
of RuffÕs early Portraits (1981Ð85), the
photographs of Demand, the paintings of Sherrie
Levine, the videos of Sturtevant, or KoonsÕs
Rabbit, many of which developed scenarios
whose veracity and origins were indiscernible.
Even a mass-market film like The Truman Show
(1999), which portrayed a man who unknowingly
performs a part in a reality show, followed and
expanded the simulation trend. Around this time,
the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard ever more
popularly convinced us that the real was an
effect of the code. The Gulf War, he wrote to
much controversy, did not happen. Baudrillard
did not mean to say that there werenÕt two
parties warring, at the price of international
stability, the environment, and human suffering.
His argument was that each of these costs Ð
financial, political, public relational, human, and
ecological (presumably in that order) Ð had been
calculated beforehand by computers, through
insurance software and virtual game plays. When
the war took place, therefore, it played out, both
in reality and in its representation in the media, a
script that had already been written. The point,
for many of these artists, filmmakers, and
thinkers, was to demonstrate that there was no wrapping of a TL light Ð the brand, the type, the
reality, no truth, no authenticity outside of the voltage, and so forth. To spend such time and
image or the model Ð and no humanity inside it. effort on something as insignificant as a copy of
To emphasize this, many works at the time Ð the wrapping of a TL light spells out an act of
perhaps most memorably the film The Matrix immense empathy. In these works, much unlike
(1999) Ð visually equated simulation with the sculptures of Koons, simulation is not what

10/12
computers and algorithms and especially with preempts history, locality, or personal affect, but
digital codes Ð with ones and zeros, languages precisely what returns it.
themselves no longer referring to any realities ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊI am also reminded here of recent
outside of them, the final stage in a history of minimalist sculptures by Monika Stricker, who
depthlessness. smears buttermilk on modes of display ranging
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊMany contemporary artists, however, re- from spick-and-span glass vitrines and windows
territorialize these languages of simulation to to shiny car hoods and rims. The act of applying
suggest not the final stage in a history of buttermilk to these screens has the effect of
depthlessness but the first one in another mattening, of hiding them and making what they
chronicle of depthiness. They jump from their communicate Ð artworks, vases, the specific
surfboards into the water, a snorkeling mask in identity of a car Ð less visible. At the same time,
hand. They cannot swim deep, but they can this action is precisely what renders these
perceive depth. Take the Irish artist Kate Holton. materials themselves more visible. By spraying a
Holton draws out the surprising and often car bonnet, Stricker defunctionalizes it Ð it no
unexplained similarities between the aesthetics longer communicates that the car it was a part of
of our networked (digital) civilization and nature. is fast, safe, and sexy. But it also opens it up for
Her Constellations series resembles starscapes: other, yet-to-be-determined uses, many of which
bright white dots, in patterns pursuing a logic of will be uninteresting to us humans. Stricker here
their own, illuminate the black space around visualizes optical noise, makes visible the
them.16 In reality, however, the paint drawings cacophony of images we normally sound out,
depict satellite images of earth Ð the American creating the potential of depth in all directions.
Midwest and northern Germany. In another She sees not just the waves but also the coral
series of drawings, mold resembles road maps reefs that may have precipitated the waves, or
with long thin lines traveling decisively from spot the reefs that are scratched by the surfboard.
to spot. Indeed, Stricker does not stand on the board as
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn one sense, HoltonÕs images are much as she floats just beneath it, taking in a
simulations: they are copies of photographs whole ecology of twenty-first century civilization.
which only by extension refer to a reality outside ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊHolten, Hol, and Stricker pull down to a
e-flux journal #61 Ñ january 2015 Ê Timotheus Vermeulen

of them. Yet by drawing out the lines and dots on human, bodily level the abstract, often
these photos, tracing by hand the patterns that immaterialized processes behind the
culture and nature share, feeling out the mathematical codes and algorithms that
cognitively inexplicable mathematical codes that calculate the constellations of stars, that shape
they have in common, she integrates them into mass-produced objects lacking in exchange
her own human experience. If WarholÕs aim was value, that determine invisible modes of display.
to demonstrate that there was no reality outside Their drawings and sculptures are depthless in
of the image and no humanity inside of it, Holton that they do not refer to a reality behind them;
shows that it may be precisely by forcefully but they do intimate a reality of affection before,
reinserting humanity inside of the image (a or without, them, even if, as is the case with
The New ÒDepthinessÓ

frame, a point of view, a bodily gesture) that the StrickerÕs buttermilked bonnets, this is a reality
possibility of an outside is restored. of disaffection. In the traces of the chalk dots,
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThere are several other artists whose works the lines of the pencil lettering, and the sprayed
Ð drawings, sculptures, drawn sculptures, and milk, a reality of empathy, of caring for and
otherwise Ð meticulously infuse humanity into participating in, becomes visible and sensible.
the simulation, and as a consequence These artists are snorkeling, feeling the wind on
reintroduce the possibility of an outside. For their backs while their eyes are pointed
example, Ane Mette Hol handcrafts three- downwards. Indeed, what they make us see most
dimensional simulations of everyday objects. of all, perhaps, is their backs, suggesting that
Oftentimes the Norwegian artist simulates though the surface itself may seem depthless,
objects that people overlook, ignore, or discard, their efforts into it are not, indicating another
like cardboard wrappings, printing paper, and realm of signification without.
dust. In one particularly poignant piece called ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn the sculptures and installations of
Untitled (Artificial Light) (2013), she uses a pencil Serbian artist Aleksandra Domanović, this depth
to meticulously copy the automatized, mass- of a without is restored in another fashion.
printed lettering that marks the cardboard Usually associated with the post-internet art

01.09.15 / 17:58:47 EST

movement, DomanovićÕs work is often discussed LeckeyÕs solo exhibition at Wiels in Brussels, or
in terms of recontextualization: of, for Pierre HuygheÕs retrospective at Palais de Tokyo
example,the relocation of the virtual to the in Paris, or Andy HoldenÕs show MI!MS at the
physical, the Communist to the capitalist, East Zabludowicz in London, or Ed Atkins at the
to West, the mechanical to the human, and so Stoschek Collection in Dusseldorf, or the oeuvre
forth. Her recent exhibition Things to Come at the of Ian Cheng, or Ralf Bršg, or Oscar Santillan, or

11/12
Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow (2014) can be Anne Pšhlmann, or Jonas Staal, or Hans
seen in this light, though it will not be the one I Kalliwoda, or Paula Doepfner, and so on and so
will shine on it. Domanović created a series of forth. The list is long, much longer than I could
seven large-scale sculptural prints on possibly outline here.
transparent foil, depicting objects from science ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhen I was growing up, in the mid-nineties
fiction films like Blade Runner (1982), Gravity and the early 2000s, I listened to Radiohead. On
(2013), and Alien (1979). The prints were modeled ÒThere, There,Ó they sang, ÒJust because you feel
after 3-D models of objects used in the films; the it, doesn't mean itÕs there.Ó
transparent foil was intended to invoke celluloid. ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊA year or so ago, while watching the
The artist installed the printed foils one after the television show Girls (episode 3 from the third
other in straight rows so that visitors had no season), I was struck by a sentence that was at
choice but to walk alongside each slide before once reminiscent and completely different from
turning to walk back along the next. Walking the that line from the early 2000s. ÒJust because itÕs
entire length of the space in this way, viewers fake, doesnÕt mean I donÕt feel it.Ó The line from
always saw the backs of the previous slide while the Radiohead song that described our world as
seeing the next one set against the background a hall of mirrors calls to mind JamesonÕs
of all the future slides. understanding of depthlessness as the last
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe point of the show was to reflect upon stage in a particular history of a particular
the history of science fiction film, foregrounding flattening.ÊBut what the line from Girls hints at is
the limited role women have thus far been that, just maybe, we are seeing the first stage in
allowed to play in the genre Ð mothers, love another history of another kind of deepening, one
interests, but rarely warriors or time travelers. whose empirical reality lies above the surface
Domanović drew attention, through the foils, to even if its performative register floats just below
the unequal history of animation: women were it: depthiness.
colored into the celluloid but were not allowed to ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ×
draw the lines. Her prints were in many respects
reminiscent of ShermanÕs photographs, except
for one detail: organized in rows that both
e-flux journal #61 Ñ january 2015 Ê Timotheus Vermeulen

discouraged physical progress while stimulating

visual passage, designating a path but allowing
one to stray, DomanovićÕs prints pulled visitors
into the peepshow, requiring them to physically
experience the history of women in sci-fi;
ShermanÕs photos, by contrast, push viewers
away, berating them for still looking. The
distinction I intend here does not concern which
strategy is better, or which aesthetic principle is
worse. Both these strategies and principles are
The New ÒDepthinessÓ

among the most powerful I have seen. What sets

them apart, however, is their understanding of
the relationship between the image and the
outside: the first creates a depth within the
simulation that points us to an outside, while the
second does the opposite. If Holten, Hol, and
Stricker show us their backs, in DomanovićÕs
performance of depth we see bubbles Ð bubbles
in whose images a depth without is mirrored. She
asks us not to look at her looking at the surface,
or even at her back; she asks us to look with her,
to join her in her virtual swim just below the
surface.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThese artists are not the only Òsnorkelers,Ó
of course. For further instances of performative
depth Ð indeed, of depthiness Ð see Mark

01.09.15 / 17:58:47 EST

 Timotheus Vermeulen is assistant professor in ÊÊÊÊÊÊ1
Cultural Theory at the Radboud University Nijmegen, Frederic Jameson,
Postmodernism, or, the Cultural
where he also co-directs the Centre for New Logic of Late Capitalism
Aesthetics. He is co-founding editor of Notes on (Durham: Duke University Press,
Metamodernism. 1992), 9.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ2
Ibid., 33, 8, 12.
present simultaneously),
EshelmanÕs notion of
performatism may provide an
interesting point of departure for
a more sustained analysis. See
Raoul Eshelman, Performatism,
or the End of Postmodernism
(Aurora: The Davies Group,
2008).

12/12
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ3 ÊÊÊÊÊÊ13Ê
Beral Madra, ÒDark rooms and Ibid, 136.
national pavilions,Ó Third
TextÊvol.Ê15, no.Ê57 (2001): 102. ÊÊÊÊÊÊ14
See →
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ4
Jameson, Postmodernism, 12. ÊÊÊÊÊÊ15Ê
Williams, Art Theory, 239.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ5
Ibid, 7. ÊÊÊÊÊÊ16
Katie Holton, Constellation
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ6 (Earth at Night: The Midwest)
Ibid, 8. (2013) and Constellation (Earth
at Night: Germany) (2013). Chalk
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ7 and acrylic paint drawings on
Quoted in Robert Williams, Art black canvas.
Theory: A Historical Introduction,
2nd ed. (Oxford: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2009), 241.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ8
Bret Easton Ellis, American
Psycho (New York: Vintage,
1991), 376Ð77.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ9
Alessandro Barrico, The
Barbarians: An Essay on the
Mutation of Culture, trans.
Stephen Sartarelli (New York:
Rizzoli International
Publications, 2014), 111.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ10
Ibid, 118.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ11Ê
A value judgment with which I
imagine the author, judging from
his self-depreciating
introduction, would be the first
to agree.
e-flux journal #61 Ñ january 2015 Ê Timotheus Vermeulen

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ12Ê
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble:
Feminism and the Subversion of
Identity (New York: Routledge,
1990), 135. I use the term
ÒperformativeÓ here also with a
nod to Raoul EshelmanÕs
canonical conceptualization of
Òperformatism.Ó One of the first
thinkers to develop a cohesive
critical vocabulary for talking
about post-postmodernism,
Eshelman intends performatism
to refer to the creation of a
frame (of mind, of painting, of
The New ÒDepthinessÓ

theater) within which something

can be true, wholesome,
irreducible, and impervious to
deconstruction, while outside of
that frame, this something isnÕt,
or cannot be, true, wholesome,
or irreducible, let alone
impervious to deconstruction.
Another phrase he uses to
describe this is Òwillful self-
deceitÓ: for a moment, you cheat
yourself into believing in a reality
that you know does not exist.
Though I am not sure whether
the below artists perform depth
through such a dualism of inside
and outside (or whether their
strategies should be seen in
terms of a Kantian as-if, a
Romantic oscillation,
WittgensteinÕs duck-rabbit, or
SloterdijkÕs sweet-and-sour
sauce, in which opposites are

01.09.15 / 17:58:47 EST